Hollow plastic leaching chambers are commonly buried in the ground to form leaching fields for receiving and dispersing liquids such as sewage system effluent or storm water into the surrounding earth. Such leaching chambers have a central cavity for receiving liquids. An opening on the bottom and slots on the sides provide the means through which liquids are allowed to exit the central cavity and disperse into the surrounding earth. Typically, multiple leaching chambers are connected to each other in series to achieve a desired subterranean volume and dispersion area. Leaching chambers are usually arch-shaped and corrugated with symmetrical corrugations for strength. Additionally, leaching chambers usually come in standard sizes. The most common size for most leaching chambers is roughly six feet long, three feet wide and slightly over one foot high.
The amount of liquid that a given leaching chamber is capable of receiving and dispersing is dependent upon the internal volume of the leaching chamber and the dispersion area over which the leaching chamber can disperse the liquids. Because most plastic leaching chambers are arch-shaped for strength, the volume and dispersion area for any given leaching chamber having the same dimensions is roughly the same. Therefore, most present leaching chambers of the same size have roughly the same capacity.
The capacity of a leaching field depends upon the size and the number of leaching chambers employed. If the size or the number of the leaching chambers employed in a leaching field is increased, the volume and dispersion area is increased, thereby increasing capacity of the leaching field. However, increasing the size or the number of leaching chambers also increases the cost as well as the area of land required for burying the leaching chambers.
Efficient use of the land can be increased by having the chambers follow the natural contours of the land. When a leaching field is created from the chambers, they are typically installed with a slight downward slope away from the sewer inlet as mandated by local requirements. The elevation of the land, however, may change over the area of the leaching field. Arching and serpentine pathways can be created to generally follow the contours of the land and to avoid obstacles in the ground. For example, by deviating the pathway from a straight line, the chambers can be better installed at the proper grade while reducing the necessity to dig trenches deeper than necessary. Typical systems permit the pathway to turn, from one chamber to the next, by using a substantially fixed angle adapter between successive chambers.